subs. (common).—A successful hoax; a swindle: see GAMMON. As verb. = to betray; to impose on; to swindle; see BARGAIN. Whence TO SELL A PUP = to fool; TO BE SOLD LIKE A BULLOCK IN SMITHFIELD (GROSE) = ‘to fall badly by treachery’; SOLD AGAIN! = DONE! (q.v.).
1597. SHAKESPEARE, Richard III. v. 3.
| K. Rich. [Reads]. ‘Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold, | |
| For Dickon thy master is BOUGHT AND SOLD.’ |
1605. DRAYTON, Mortimeriados.
| Is this the kindnes that thou offerest mee? | |
| And in thy Country am I BOUGHT AND SOLD? |
1605. JONSON, Volpone, or the Fox, Argument. New tricks for safety are sought; they thrive: when bold, each tempts the other again, and all are SOLD.
1847. Blackwood’s Magazine, lxii. 259, ‘How I stood for the Dreepdaily Burghs.’ I had been idiot enough to make my debut in the sporting world … and, as a matter of course, was remorselessly SOLD by my advisers.
1850. F. E. SMEDLEY, Frank Fairlegh, 145. “He called it … ‘no end of a something or other’——” “SELL,” suggested Freddy. Ibid. (1851), Lewis Arundel, xxiv. You’re not going to try and cut out Bellefield … are you? I wish you would, it would SELL Bell so beautifully.
1864. Glasgow Citizen, 10 Dec. People pretend to have read Spenser and Chaucer, and it is rude … to SELL the affable pretender by getting him to remember non-existent passages and minor poems.
1874. E. WOOD, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., XXVI., 465. It’s an awful SELL … no hunting, and no shooting, and no nothing.
1883. Daily News, 18 April, 5, 4. Lord Randolph Churchill has been making Mr. Gladstone the victim of what, in … Addison’s time, would have been called a BITE, and what in … our own time is called a SELL.
1888. BOLDREWOOD, Robbery under Arms, x. Some day he’ll SELL us all, I really do believe.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 16 Jan. But suppose that he should take our money and SELL us.
